


Truth Is Like Blood Beneath Your Fingernails

by the_lights_and_the_roses



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Buck is just trying to get home, Buck just really needs someone to listen, Buck's got this, Buck's thoughts in 3x05, Character Study, Character motivation, Gen, References to Depression, depressed!Buck, lots of introspection, spoilers for 3x04 and 3x05 in particular
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_lights_and_the_roses/pseuds/the_lights_and_the_roses
Summary: "He is desperate to explain.He is desperate to explain to all of them.He just needs someone to listen...Buck survived a ladder truck on his leg. He can survive this."Buck's thoughts and motivations in 3x05 Rage as he goes through the lawsuit.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	Truth Is Like Blood Beneath Your Fingernails

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note - This is my first fic ever on a03 and first ever 911 fic. Thank you to the lovely people on the buddie discord for encouraging me with this.  
> The title comes from the song Looking Too Closely by Fink. At the end, some dialogue between Buck and Bobby is used from the very end of 3x05 - I very clearly do not own this.

Buck’s survived a lot of things. He’s survived his leg being crushed by a ladder truck - and to be honest, crushed is the only word that can really describe what it felt like. He has survived a tsunami.

Buck survives. It’s what he does.

Why can’t anyone else see it though? He just wants to get back to his team, his family, and Bobby, Bobby is the one holding him back?

It hurts more than the damn ladder truck.

The lawsuit seemed like the only solution, it feels like this is the only way he can get himself back now. He never, ever wanted it to come to this.  
It’s been over a week since he bought the papers around to Bobby. His lawyer called him yesterday; the department want to bring arbitration forward. This week. Chase tells him it’s rare to get a date this quickly and all Buck can think is maybe it’s a sign they’re seeing his side, they’ll bring him home.

Until then, his life feels in limbo. The cooking shows he would aimlessly watch after the embolism just remind him of Bobby so they’re not an option. He can’t call Eddie, or Christopher, and he knows Maddie will be caught between a rock and hard place with him and Chim.

He didn’t lie to Chase; he really is alone in this fight.That was okay though, he’s been on his own before. He can do it again. Maybe that’s the worst part though: after everything, after joining the 118, he thought he didn’t have to feel like that anymore.

The phone rings, suddenly bleeping and pulling Buck out of his reverie. It’s Maddie. He never actually told her about the lawsuit; he wanted to keep her out of it but Chim must have told her anyway because he got a text asking what was happening a few days ago.

He sent one saying everything was under control and then ignored his phone for the rest of the night. He hasn’t spoken to her since then.

Buck is almost dreading speaking to his own sister but accepts the call anyway. She’s his sister after all.

“Are you kidding me?” Maddie says immediately. “You’re suing the LAFD? Suing Bobby? Buck? I’ve been calling and texting and you’re what-ghosting me?”

“Chim told you.” Maybe it’s him, but he thinks his voice sounds flat, funny somehow. It doesn’t sound right lately.“I seriously think you should… Buck, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Buck says nothing, bites his lip and opens the fridge. He leans against his phone, wondering if his sister can somehow hear his thoughts because they’re getting so damn loud. “I’m getting back to being a firefighter, sis.”

“I thought… I thought you were doing the fire marshall gig.”

The memory is sour in his mouth. He didn’t hate every moment of the desk job but it’s not him, he shouldn’t be a fire marshall. The light duty was just meant to prove he could play nicely and that he was ready but they don’t seem to get it. He’s a firefighter. It’s everything to him.

 _Everything_.

It’s all he’s good at. Good for.

“I’m coming over,” Maddie says and Buck can hear the tiredness in her voice.

“I’m fine, sis, honest.”

“I know, maybe I just want to hang out with my brother.” Maddie isn’t as great a liar as she thinks she is. “Let’s get some lunch, okay. We don’t have to talk about it."

“Alright.”

He knows she won’t accept a no, he knows they’ll end up talking about it anyway. He's always letting Maddie down. He couldn't protect her from Doug the first time, didn't protect her the second time. He's a failure.

Buck survived a pulmonary embolism. Buck can survive this.

* * *

The meeting really hadn’t gone to plan. At the time, it seemed like the right choice - the only choice. Only now, Buck was walking out of an arbitration hearing watching his team, his family, close the elevator door on him.

Chase told him he thought he went well. How could Chase say that?

He told them everything Buck had told Chase and Buck can’t see why he had to do that. He didn’t tell Chase that stuff for him to say it in the meeting; he just needed Chase to understand the context, to see that Bobby really should let him back, that it was ridiculous, he was fine.

He was fine. He is fine.

He can do his job, he just wants to do his job.

Buck has spent his whole life trying to find something he's good at, something that matters. He found it. Why won't they let him just do what he's made to do, be who he is made to be? Without

Buck survived a damn tsunami. Buck can survive this.

* * *

He wants to talk to Eddie and explain. Only that didn’t work out so well today, did it? He thought Eddie was going to punch him at one point, he was mentally bracing himself.

How did he get to this point? How did Eddie? Eddie seems so… tense. Different. Eddie’s always restrained so why now is he a coiled spring; poised and ready to explode at any moment.

It’s different for Eddie though; why doesn’t he see that? Eddie is together, so together, even when he’s not. He has an amazing kid, he’s got transferable skills - the man has a damn medal, that man has never been fired for having sex in a truck. Has never been such a fuck up. He has prospects and Buck doesn’t.

Eddie is Eddie. He’s just together. He’s that guy and Buck, Buck has never felt like that.

It’s why it hurt so much when he realised that for Eddie, Buck being told he couldn’t be a firefighter wasn’t the end of the world. He just couldn’t get it.

He is desperate to explain.

He is desperate to explain to all of them.

He just needs _someone_ to listen.

* * *

It is all wrong. The lawyer was meant to get him back home; not grin and show him a number. He wanted to say there wasn’t a number, could never be a number. Come on, Buck thought, you have one job. Get me back, get me home.

Is it awful that for a second after he left the office he thought about the number, he thought about saying yes. Just for a second, just for one tiny second when he remembered about how mad Eddie was in the grocery store.

Buck just wants to be back, back home where he belongs, but in his darkest moments, he’s starting to wonder if they even want him back. Maybe that’s what it is; maybe the blood thinners are a cover for just not being good enough.

The walls feel narrower. Maybe he’s spent too much time in his apartment lately. Everything feels a little off; like a television with the sound not quite balanced. He’s aware of everything; has felt a bit like that ever since the tsunami.

The tsunami could have broken him. God, it almost did. If Christopher hadn’t….

Buck would never forgive himself for losing him. If he were Eddie, he would have never spoken to Buck again. Maybe it’s projecting, he can’t understand why Eddie forgave him, let him spend time with Christopher after the tsunami.

He couldn’t even keep him safe.

If -when- he gets back to work, he can make sure he’s ready, make sure nothing like this happens again.

He hadn’t thought about whether Christopher was still having the nightmares since the lawsuit. When Eddie had first called him, after the first nightmare, Buck tried to tell him how much he had tried to shield Christopher from. He didn’t say everything; he just wanted to make it clear he had looked after him. Until he lost Christopher. Who knows what he saw? Who knows how much Buck failed him? He lost Christopher. 

Eddie was right earlier, he was selfish. He should have tried to keep talking to Christopher - the lawsuit didn’t prevent that. Buck should have been braver, should have tried. He can imagine how Chris is doing; how the tsunami has whipped up anxiety and worry. The kid is so damn brave. Unlike Buck.

If he's honest with himself; the tsunami shook him. Just a little. Just a bit. Sometimes when he shuts his eyes he can see bodies floating, or in the bath - which he made himself take, an immersion therapy of sorts - when his head was in the water, for a second he was back there. Back under. Buck is a professional though; he's used to trauma, he can handle it, he knows the trigger points, the ways to deal with it. He's a firefighter. He can handle this sort of thing, but Christopher is just a kid. He never should have bought him to the pier.

Somehow, everything Buck tries to hold on keeps slipping away.

His phone vibrates. He looks at it dubiously. It’s Bobby, he wants Buck to join them at a rage room. A rage room? Team building, the text says.

Team building after that meeting? Is he the rage room target? Maybe they’re united in their rage against him, maybe they’re going to tell him he’s not coming back.

Or maybe…

Maybe Chase did what Buck asked. Maybe, just maybe Buck’s finally coming home.

Hope can take the air out of your lungs. It’s dangerous. Crushing even.

He goes to the rage room. He finds himself subconsciously shrinking when he sees Bobby. He needs to be smaller somehow, apologetic, show how sorry he is.

Then Bobby tells him he’s back on the team and it’s like catching his breath. The lightness, that moment where he knows he did the right thing. He fought and he won and he’s back.

He’s back.

“Thanks, Captain," he says sincerely, "you won’t regret it,” Bobby won’t. Buck won’t betray the trust he’s put back in; that was the whole damn point, now he can show Bobby that he was ready.

“You might.” The words are ice down his back. “My house, my rules, remember that?” He’s heard phrases like before, it’s never boded well. The whole conversation seems off kilter, a pyrrhic victory. A line was crossed recently, he's not sure he can uncross it.

He’s coming home though.

Buck survived a ladder truck on his leg. He can survive this.


End file.
